May 2015...Better late than never!

May has certainly been a busy month for school visits, with over 240 school children coming through to learn all about the natural history of the reserve! Although the weather hasn’t always been the best this month, when the sun did shine, we wasted no time in getting the kids active outdoors. We even had a den building competition between classes from Tany’s Dell Primary School, with some spectacular results! Brilliant work!

We had a great pond life weekend too, with visitors working out the order of a frog’s life cycle as they walk around the trail. Our tadpoles were on show, allowing kids to get up close to them in our tanks.

Our chicks too have grown up! Towards the end of the month they were taken home to the warden’s house where they were put into a bigger house with other chickens to live with. They’re now enjoying scrapping about in her garden.

Happy Chicks in their new home

 Our conservation volunteers have also had a busy month, working on clearing away plants to start making the new footpath which is due to open in the reserve later this year. This was difficult work, with the brambles being unforgiving but they have done an excellent job as always!

May seems to have been a busy month for everything in the reserve, including our bees! The reports from the beekeepers is that they are loving life in the reserve and are starting to produce honey. Keep an eye on the café as later this year we hope to sell our own Parndon Wood honey! 

Towards the end of the month we held our minibeast weekend. The few weeks beforehand had been rather dry, so we were a bit worried our minibeasts had hidden themselves up but luckily (or not so, depending on your thoughts of rain!) it rained beforehand which encouraged our bugs out for all to see! Our favourite spot of the weekend was a bright red cardinal beetle and a sawfly caterpillar.

Cardinal Beetle

Sawfly Caterpillar

We couldn’t write a blog without noting down some of our more notable spots by staff and visitors. During May, we spotted a Tawny Owl several times, which is excellent to see! Owls are top predators and their presence within the reserve indicates to us that everything in the food chain below the owl, e.g. mice and other rodents and their food, is doing well also! The warden spotted the owl once too and managed to get a picture of it!

Look close and you might spot the Tawny Owl

What will we see in June?!